Culture and development. The Global Quest for Indicators

Culture and development are two challenging, ever-changing, cumbersome concepts. They are strongly related, in many and contradictory ways. In the last two decades, their connection has acquired momentum, and culture is accepted both as a driver and an enabler of development, and, by some, is proposed as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. None the less, the UN 2030 Agenda has failed to give culture a proper relevance with one or more earmarked goals. The process of identifying cultural development objectives and accompanying them with a viable set of indicators appears difficult, halting and incomplete. In that perspective, the article focus on a few alternative definitions of culture and their different significance for development aid initiatives. A stimulating project, UNESCO's Cultural Development Indicator Suite, is briefly discussed for its potential contribution for setting up appropriate tools for providing the necessary evidence to political choice, strengthening strategic planning activity and building a reliable evaluation system to reach full accountability of policies.